The Journal
by Aeetos22
Summary: Spike counted the days after Buffy's death during the summer after Season Five. In my story he keeps a journal as well. Story will go up to Buffy's resurrection and based on reviews I may or may not continue it. So please R R!
1. Thursday, May 3rd, Day 7

Spike's Journal Post-Season 5

Summary: Spike writing, no idea how long I'll keep the story going. As of right now it's open-ended, I'll let you know if that changes.

A/N: Buffy died in 2001. Using that calendar, unlike the show, I'll be keeping an accurate account of the days she's been gone until the time she most likely was resurrected. Language, graphic violence, drugs and alcohol, possible sex – definite sex if this continues into season six. This is the only time I'll give you these warnings. From here on in the format will look like the following:

Thursday, May 3rd, Day 7

It's been a week since we (Buffy, Giles, the Whelp, Anya, Red, Glinda, and myself) left to save Dawn and defeat Glory to save the world from apocalypse and since then every day has seemed like a year in its passing. We each had a job to do that night. Each our own share of responsibility to ensure Dawn's safe return and the protection of the world.

Glinda for starters, loony as she was, led us to where the tower was. Red weakened that hellbitch fashion disaster Glory by sucking out all the brains she's eaten and returning them to their rightful owners, including Glinda. Anya, Giles, and the Whelp fought Glory's minions like the right gents they are. Fought them all, fought them well, and fought those bloody scabs until alls that was left were their bloody corpses useable only to the vultures that would peck their bodies dry.

I didn't see Buffy during much of the fight. Saw her counterpart the Buffybot beating the snot out of that loony bint for a good five minutes at the beginning but after that? From what the others tell me she gave it her all against the bitch. Beat the shit out of her she did. Good riddance.

I don't know what happened. I really don't. No matter how many times I see it and believe me I remember each and every little bit of what happened. I see it often. I see it every time I close my eyes to sleep. I see it in my dreams. I can hear Red's voice in my head telling me to "Go! Spike go now!" and each and every time I do. I run to those stairs as Red splits Glory's mob in two like Moses and the Red Sea. Up and up I go. The steps go flying by. I barely remember climbing them at all I run so fast. And when I do reach the top a part of me rejoices that she's still fine but another point burns in rage.

He's there too.

Those eyes.

Black orbs of death – demon through and through.

Sometimes I don't say a damn thing. I just keep going without a break in my gait until my hands are around his head and cracking his neck. It's a loud crack. After freeing the Bit I usher her down to the awaiting arms of her big sis while I go check on the "Doc." Fooled me once he did but he won't ever get the chance to do so again.

Picking up that knife I lean over him and realize that my gut was right and he still wasn't dead. So I go to work on him. I scrape the knife along the steel walkway, scrape it next to his ear, scrape it so finely that sparks fly. He's still playing possum but unfortunately a trick like that doesn't work twice on a vamp like me. After making sure that that blade is sharp I grab a fistful of what's left of his hair and scalp him like those red Indians do. This wakes him up but I got my knee pressing down on his chest and keeping him pinned like.

All he can do is whither and scream making the work all that much more fun for me.

After I finally take his scalp the constant screaming is getting annoying so I take hold of that long tongue of his and cut that off.

Next came the ears, two deft cuts, one then two

Now, he couldn't hear, couldn't talk, but he could still see and feel. It was a trick Angelus taught me once. He always loved the sound of his victims cries more than anything else but sometimes the need for silence and stealth surpassed that want. After all didn't need Buffy and the others coming up wondering where all the screaming was coming from. So to compensate you take away some of the victim's senses. The ears were optional but you always left the eyes in. They are the windows to the soul after all and if you couldn't hear the victim's screams then at least this way you could watch and see their terror.

See it in the victim's eyes.

The unbearable pain.

The sheer terror.

Their death.

I never really cared for it myself except for when it became personal; when things got personal I think I got off more on the torture than Angelus ever did and make no mistake this was personal.

Next came his fingers and toes one right after the other. A lot of them fell off the tower, so small they were, so I compensated by shoving them inside Doc's mouth. Most demon's would be dead by now but you see the way I have it figured is that Doc's greatest strength, that uncanny survivability of his, is also his greatest weakness. A good beheading will kill him and make no mistake before I leave his head will be removed but until then I want him to pay.

So I continue my fun.

Hacking, mutilating, breaking bones, cutting off his balls, ripping out his kidneys and other organs, hell I even shove my fingers up into his nostrils and tear his nose clean off. His dick I cut into teensy weensy pieces. I'm a little unsure as to how much damage his heart could take so I leave that bit alone. Next I rolled him over, took hold of that tail of his and pulled. It took me about five seconds of pulling but I ripped it clean off. Blood and guts flying everywhere I tell you it was poetry in motion. Oh yea. I did it all and left his eyes for last.

Before I gouged them out I showed him how he would die. Took that knife and whisked it past my own neck in a sign of decapitation. Oh yea he knew he was dead. And after he knew that I took out his eyes. Left and then right. I place them in what's left of his left hand. His balls in what was left of his right.

Angelus would have been proud.

Hell.

If Angel knew what this thing was and what it would do then he would be proud too if not disappointed that he wouldn't be the one that would kill this sick bastard.

So I take the knife and begin to slowly pull it back and forth across his neck in a gentle sawing motion. I'm not actually drawing blood. Just letting him feel that blade across his neck. It causes him to start trembling again. He had long ago stopped moving what with his body wracked in sheer agonizing pain but now, in realization that he would soon die, he couldn't control himself. Piss erupts from what is left of his genitalia and a foul odor from his ass makes itself known.

To me it only makes the work so much sweeter.

The horror he must be in. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't smell, he could only feel the cool wet blade as it edged away at the skin on his neck. He must be thinking when would the pain stop? When wouldn't he feel a thing at all? With my strength he knows I could cleave his head off at any second I wanted. But I toy with him. Enjoying his shaking. His tiny whimpers. I keep at it for hours and sometimes stop sawing for a few minutes to leave him wondering if I had just gotten up and left. But then I'd come around and ram the knife into his leg or chest or something.

Unfortunately dawn begins to approach and I know my time of fun and games will soon be at an end. So, on sudden impulse, I stab the knife down into his heart and smile when I see that that hadn't killed him after all. With a gut wrenching twist I rip his heart out and take a good long drink from it. From its taste I realize something. Something that made it only taste so much sweeter. I drop the heart back into his chest cavity and again take up my knife-play about his neck.

The night's shadows grow long and the sun slowly makes it appearance over the horizon. Luckily I still have some shade but time was growing short and so at last I stand and light a cigarette.

After a deep drag I flick it to the ground or more accurately onto his body and smile as it erupts into flame. Despite his severed tongue Doc still manages a gruesome scream of pain amongst the biting flames but the scream is short lived as I finally slam the knife home and sever his head clean off as the rest of his body burns to ash.

Never again would that bastard ever get his hands on one of my girls.

Never again.

That's when I open my eyes and find myself not on the top of Glory's tower or over Doc's burning remains.

Instead I'm in my chair back at the crypt with a glass of bourbon in my hand.

There were lots of different ways I saved the day that night.

Saved the day that night?

Bit redundant that.

But out of all the different shots I could've made I took the one that missed my mark and sunk the eight on a game whose stakes were far too high to lose.

I lost.

And now she's gone because of it.

The Bit got me this journal before the end. When she learned that my birthday had been back in April. She knows more about me now than Angelus ever did and I was with him for what? Twenty years? Girl is in my heart she is. Read all my poetry and even keeps one of my books, her favorite, at home under the bed to read at night.

Guess it helps her sleep a bit better but me?

I toss back that glass of bourbon and pour myself another.

I'll stick to the booze.

_End Entry_


	2. Monday, May 7th, Day 11

Monday, May 7th, Day 11

Spent all weekend drinking and fantasizing over a few more ways on how I killed Doc and save Buffy from having to jump off that tower. Honest to God I really didn't feel much of anything all weekend but now that Monday's here and believe me I know it's Monday because Giles came storming into my crypt this morning with two bloody frying pans. I was sprawled out on the floor on the crypt's lower level. Out cold from all that drinking.

But when he started banging those two pans together and yelling and shouting at me to get up and get moving…

Leave it to a librarian to know how to make a racket equivalent of sodden D-Day.

Quick recap.

Last time I saw him, or any of them, was at the burial. Now it was held that night and was only delayed by the amount of time it took for yours truly to get a suitable coffin. Obviously we couldn't wait long on the burial. For Dawn's sake no one outside our group and Angel's little fag gang in LA could know of Buffy's passing.

She died that morning and was buried that same night.

The coffin was my job – as all illegal jobs are.

Broke into one of Sunnydale's many funeral homes (it is a thriving business after all) and managed to steal a coffin that looked to be about her size – color and finish really weren't a top priority. Loaded it onto the Whelp's pickup and we rode out towards the woods behind Restfield Cemetery, my cemetery.

Even though they only chose the place so that I could keep a better eye on it for safety's sake it was still, to me, a very honorable gesture. That over the past year the group had come to trust me so much. A trust which I promise never to break because I knew that once upon a time they had trusted another vampire as well and even though I'm not him I can still take a gander as to just how hard it was for them to allow me that. And unlike him I'll be damned if I ever toss it aside and pack up my bags and leave.

They knew how much I had cared for her and that whatever I felt – FEEL – however misguided it is… it's real. So naturally they gave me my space and allowed me to grieve in my own manner but apparently not in my own time. As much as I would have loved to have broken into a liquor store later that night and get royally pissed good ole Rupes had other ideas.

"Get your undead arse up you bloody vampire!"

No really, his words exactly. This string of words, along with many of curses, and banging of pots and pans followed until I finally managed to get up and forcefully hold his hands back from anymore banging.

"What the hell do you want?"

"Dress yourself and take the sewers to my flat. From there we will continue this discussion."

With that he climbed back up the ladder and left. Mad as I was I knew Giles wouldn't be so abrupt and up front about a thing like this unless it was important. So I did as he asked and made my way there upon which I was even more surprised when he told me to go take a shower while he washed and dried my clothes.

Apparently I smelled like a "…cross between a pile of shetland manure and a rank piece of mango fruit."

Offended as I was I decided it was best not to argue and instead just do as was told. As I stood there in the shower thinking about what was going on it began to dawn on me that whatever Giles was up to he wasn't in it by himself. The group must have had some sort of meeting and decided that whatever was to happen I had a definite role to play.

Apparently the role didn't involve being drunk at the bottom of a hole and smelling like a dead corpse.

Bit redundant that.

After I got out of the shower I found a frilly pinkish robe thing awaiting me on a door hook with a little post it note reading "KEEP IT."

Apparently my taking showers and washing my clothes here were to be somewhat of a regular occurrence.

The robe was a bit on the short side and must've been left by one of those birds he had been seeing a might back but it worked and so I walked out and made my way to the kitchen. Having been Giles' "house guest" for a month had given me a good idea as to where everything was and wasn't too surprised when I found a bag of pigs blood waiting for me in the fridge.

"There's also some tea in the kettle," Giles said from the living room. "Once you fix yourself some breakfast please be good enough to join me out here will you."

"Right," I say and after fixing myself one mug of blood and another of tea, Earl Gray I note, I make my way over to the sitting chair adjacent to the couch where Giles was sitting and drifting through a paper.

"Don't suppose that holds the latest Manchester United scores does it?"

"I'm afraid not," Giles said.

"Then are those funny pictures spelling any laughs?"

"Hardly," Giles said and placed the paper down on the coffee table. After taking a sip of his tea he lowered his glasses and gave me a long look. "Well at least you don't smell like a corpse anymore."

"What?"

"Well a French corpse then."

"Whatever Rupes," I say and take a look at the section he was reading. The obituaries, not surprised, but I do take note of three specific deaths that he had circled in blue ink all three of which came from massive neck trauma.

"Even though she is gone the Hellmouth is still here and therefore evil is still here, present company excluded of course."

"Hey!"

"Well really Spike. If I had any notion that you would kill me right here, pain chip aside, do you think I would've invited you in, cleaned you up, and fed you breakfast?"

"You think I give a piss about the big picture? The fight between good and evil?"

"No I don't delude myself with such hopes that you William the Bloody Slayer of Slayers could ever overcome your base wants of violence, sex, and liquor to achieve something more greater and far more remarkable."

"I'm hurt."

"Buffy's dead."

I don't know if it was the way he said it with such utter simplicity as if it were as easy as saying what the day's weather would be or if it was because the sheer thought of her not being alive still stung like the impact of slug to the chest but either way it took all of my restraint, which isn't much mind you, to keep myself from leaping across the table and throttling him right then and there. As he said, pain chip aside, I really don't think I'd stop ripping his throat out until he was bone dry.

"And I know that isn't an easy thing to accept," Giles said as he continued. "And though I'm certain it isn't love your time of grieving is at its end as recent events clearly indicate," he said and gestured to the paper with the circled obituaries.

I pick up the paper to read it more closely and browse through the first two victims but stop on the third.

"Jessica Clarkson," I read, "age fourteen…"

"I believe she was in Dawn's class."

"Yea," I say as I toss the paper back down on the table as if it were suddenly alive. Alive and evil. A monstrosity that didn't care whose its victims were.

"Buffy reacted much like you when she first started reading these articles," Giles said and it was only then did I realize he had been watching for my reaction.

"Just a body," I manage to mutter out and quickly take in a deep gulp of the still steaming tea. Too hot I realize as it burns my throat. Could vamps combust from hot tea?

"Indeed," Giles said with more than a tone of curiosity in his voice. "But in any event Faith is in prison and without a slayer the hellmouth remains unguarded and an open haven for evil everywhere."

"What did the Majestic Poof have to say?"

"Willow went to LA to break the news. She got back late last night with Angel's words of condolences and offer of help should we need it which brings me to that very question. Do we?"

"Do we what?"

"Need his help?" Giles said and gave me a long dissecting look. I may wear my heart on my sleeve but there are times, during cards especially, when I can be pretty damn unreadable and so I put on my best poker face of indifference when in fact I was at a total loss of what to think or how to even feel.

If I was alive I'm pretty sure this sort of shock would be enough to seal my coffin.

I mean unless I was reading this wrong Giles here was giving me the chance to step up and be the, well lack for better terminology, new sheriff in town. Giving me the chance, before Angel, to be the guardian, to be the champ – the champion? Hah that's a riot! And I doubt that Giles would agree to even the other two titles. Then what? Buffy was gone and supposedly, me being evil and what not, that means that there's nothing else left for me here. Except there was. No matter how hard I may try to deny it I had made roots. Connections.

Dawn, for one, I care for just as much as I care for her sister. How could I possibly leave when her world has just gone through hell and for a large part still was? And it wasn't just for her either. For Buffy's memory I would stay and continue on the fight. Those two reasons were definite, concrete, unwavering and more than enough to keep me here but they weren't the only ones. There was something else. Small but whatever it is its still there. Growing too like a bloody infestation inside of me. The hell I'll ever admit to it though.

"I'll give you until sunset to decide," Giles said at last when it became apparent that it would take a bit for me to decide on what to do.

Except that it didn't and as he stood to leave I knew that whatever happened now, for better or worse, my life would forever be changed.

"Wait," I say and he does giving me a look of genuine wonder.

"How can I help?"

"Spike I can't make any monetary-"

"Bollocks! Don't give me that Giles we both know what I mean."

He nodded.

"Forgive me I had to make sure."

"Well yea. I'm in this. For real. Now what the hell do you need me to do?"

He just shook his head, took off his glasses, and gave them that trademark Giles cleaning with the ever present handkerchief.

"Remarkable."

_End Entry_


End file.
